PREDICTION OF BIMATERIAL THERMAL-CRACKING BY THE BOUNDARY-ELEMENT METHOD

A boundary element procedure is developed concerning the prediction of the quasistatic crack growth in uniformly heated bimaterials. This pr ocedure assumes the existence of an initial small crack in one of the two phases, and further cracking progress from this point due to therm al loading. The resulting mixed boundary value problem is solved by ap plying an incremental boundary-only method in conjunction with the mul tidomain technique. Fracture characterizing parameters are evaluated u tilizing special crack tip singular elements and appropriate formulas. The crack path is predicted using the strain energy release rate crit erion, and the mesh is updated at the end of each increment. The prese nted results are in good agreement with previously reported experiment al results and those obtained by the finite element method. Various nu merical studies were conducted and interpreted concerning crack-path d ependence on individual material property mismatch. (C) 1998 John Wile y & Sons, Ltd.